After launching a successful high-tech startup–communication equipment manufacturer Shiva Corporation–Dan Schwinn turned his talents to fixing a glaring problem with the utility of small general aviation airplanes. The instrumentation available in the early 1990s on the typical single-engine aircraft was needlessly complicated, Schwinn felt. What aviation needed was a much simpler interface between the airplane and the pilot–something that presents information in a clear, easy-to-interpret manner and that promotes safety, rather than detracting from it.

Phil Mathews wanted to be a pilot since childhood, but bad eyesight precluded that dream. Instead, after graduating from England's University of Buckingham in 1989, he began a job as a check-in agent at London's Gatwick Airport. He was hired just for summer vacation, but he wound up being promoted to flight dispatcher and manager of general operations and spending four years there.

Nick Popovich looks like a bouncer and can talk like a longshoreman. But he also has a keen understanding of geopolitics, international finance and commercial trends. He runs a far-flung global aviation business, Sage-Popovich, from his 120-acre ranch near Valparaiso, Ind. He drives a Bentley, breeds thoroughbred Rocky Mountain horses and enjoys fine cigars.

"When I was telling people that I joined Piaggio," said John Bingham, "they would say, 'I didn't realize that you had gone to work in motor scooters.' I quickly understood that we needed to do something about the name of the company. So that is why we branded it 'Piaggio Aero.'"

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A BIG AIRLINE tries running a business jet charter and management subsidiary? In the case of Delta AirElite, what might at first seem like a prescription for disaster turns out to be a near-perfect elixir of airline value blended with the exceptional service and efficiency of private jet travel.

Remember Victor Kiam-the man who liked Remington electric razors so much he bought the company? Well, you might say VistaJet chairman Thomas Flohr is Kiam's alter ego-he disliked an industry so much that he started a company to try to fix it. The industry in question is business jet charter.

Steve Taylor, the new president of Boeing Business Jets, grew up around airplanes. "My first airplane ride was in an Aero Commander at age a-month-and-a-half and I have kind of been in them ever since," he told me. "I was a kid who read airplane magazines front to back-your basic airplane geek."

In 1999, when Kenny Dichter took his first private jet ride on a friend's Hawker 800XP from New York to Boston, the airplane wasn't all that took wing. Dichter spotted an untapped market. Less than a decade later, he helms a jet-card subsidiary to industry giant NetJets that had sales of approximately $800 million to $900 million last year.

The aviation bug bit Alex Wilcox at an early age, back when an airline pilot could invite a wide-eyed youngster into the cockpit during a long flight. Wilcox's Swiss mother and American father spent lots of time in Europe, and he vividly recalls extended conversations with pilots while crossing the North Atlantic.